How do You Show You Really, Really Care? With a Screwdriver...and a Solid Gold Cartier LOVE Bracelet. FASHIONTRIBES FASHION BLOG

   

When medieval warriors headed off to battle, they liked to "lock up" their wives with a chastity belt to stave off the possibility of any monkey business while they were away taking care of business. In 1969, a young Italian designer who had recently joined Cartier, Aldo Cipullo, liked the idea of showing the world you were "locked up" in a committed relationship, which led him to create a now iconic two-piece bracelet that had to be bolted together to encircle the wrist: the solid gold Love Bracelet & its accompanying screwdriver. 

Cartier management liked the idea that no was was allowed to buy one for their own wrist, and to promote the new design, they got 25 high profile couples to lock each other up and formally exchange screwdrivers: Nancy & Frank Sinatra, Ali McGraw & Steve McQueen, Sophia Loren & Carlo Ponti, and the Duke & Duchess of Windsor, and Richard Burton & Elizabeth Taylor. The list of celeb fans, both older & newer, is seemingly endless: Barbara Streisand, Diana Ross, Reggie Jackson, John McEnroe, Elton John, Tori Spelling, Jane Fonda, Liza Minelli, and - back in the day - Madge, when she still Madonna. Recent converts include Jamie Fox, Mary J. Blige, and Lindsay Lohan.

But no one loves a Love Bracelet as much as a lady of a certain age of who once showed up at a Cartier reception wearing six on one wrist, and three more on the other. "Listen, honey," she explained to astonished bystanders. "I've had a few lovers in my time, and I made each one of them give me a Love Bracelet.  For me, these nine bracelets are like the notches on a gunfighter's pistol!"

Declare your looooove at Love.cartier.com

- Lesley Scott

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